Science

Japan launched its lunar exploration spacecraft on Thursday aboard a homegrown H-IIA rocket, hoping to become the world’s fifth country to land on the Moon early next year. Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said the rocket took off from Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan as planned and successfully released the Smart Lander for Investigating

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) of the American space agency NASA has captured an image of the Chandrayaan-3 landing site. The spacecraft is currently near the moon’s south pole since its successful soft landing on August 23. The Chandrayaan-3 landing site is located about 600 kilometers from the Moon’s South Pole. The camera attached to

Aditya L1, the first space-based Indian mission to study the Sun underwent the second earth-bound manoeuvre successfully, during the early hours on Tuesday, ISRO said. ISRO’s Telemetry, Tracking and Command Network (ISTRAC) carried out the operation. “The second Earth-bound manoeuvre (EBN#2) is performed successfully from ISTRAC, Bengaluru. ISTRAC/ISRO’s ground stations at Mauritius, Bengaluru and Port

India switched off its moon rover, the first craft to reach the lunar south pole, after it completed its two-week assignment conducting experiments, the country’s space agency said. The Pragyan rover from the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft was “set into Sleep mode” but with batteries charged and receiver on, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said in

Following the success of India’s moon landing, the country’s space agency ISRO launched a rocket on Saturday to study the sun in its first solar mission, Aditya-L1. The rocket left a trail of smoke and fire as scientists clapped, a live broadcast on the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) website showed.  The broadcast was watched

Aditya-L1, India’s first solar mission, is all set to be launched today (September 2) at 11.50am IST from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh’s Sriharikota. The launch for the solar mission has been announced days after the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) achieved success in safe landing on the moon surface

An Amazon shareholder has filed a lawsuit against founder Jeff Bezos and the Amazon board alleging directors failed to fully vet a decision to award launch contracts for the company’s Project Kuiper satellite project to Blue Origin, Bezos’s space company. The lawsuit filed by Cleveland Bakers and Teamsters Pension Fund earlier this week claims that

The Indian Space and Research Organisation on Thursday said that the Pragyan Rover module of the Vikram lander has recorded a natural event on the south pole of the moon. However, the detection of its source is underway. Taking to ‘X’ (formerly known as Twitter), ISRO said, “Chandrayaan-3 Mission: In-situ Scientific Experiments Instrumenhttps://www.gadgets360.com/tags/moont for the

The Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscope instrument onboard ‘Pragyan‘ rover of Chandrayaan-3 has unambiguously confirmed the presence of sulphur on the lunar surface near south pole, through first-ever in-situ measurements, ISRO said on Tuesday.  It also said the instrument also detected aluminium, calcium, iron, chromium, titanium, manganese, silicon and oxygen, as expected. “The Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS)

After the successful Chandrayaan-3 mission to the Moon, ISRO on Monday announced that India’s first solar mission Aditya-L1 to study the Sun will be launched on September 2 at 11.50 am from Sriharikota spaceport.  Aditya-L1 spacecraft is designed to provide remote observations of the solar corona and in-situ observations of the solar wind at L1

Jio Platforms is keen to lead efforts in developing India-specific AI models and AI-powered solutions across domains, delivering the benefit of this new-age technology to Indian citizens, businesses and government, RIL Chairman Mukesh Ambani said on Monday promising “AI to everyone, everywhere.” Terming Artificial Intelligence (AI) as the most exciting frontier of growth for Jio,

Japan’s space agency on Monday postponed for the third time the launch of its “Moon Sniper” lunar mission due to poor weather. The H2-A rocket due to blast off from the southern island of Tanegashima was also carrying a research satellite developed with NASA and the European Space Agency. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi flew down to Bengaluru on Saturday directly from the Greek capital of Athens to interact with ISRO scientists on the successful Chandrayaan-3 mission and announced the decision to name the place where lander Vikram touched down on the lunar surface as “Shiva Shakti Point”.  Terming the success of Chandrayaan-3 mission as an

On the heels of the success of the Chandrayaan-3 moon landing, India’s space agency has set a date for its next mission — this time to study the sun.  The Aditya-L1, India’s first space observatory for solar research, is getting ready for launch at the country’s main spaceport in Sriharikota, the Indian Space Research Organisation

ISRO on Friday released a breathtaking video of the Chandrayaan-3 mission’s rover ‘Pragyan‘ rolling down from the lander ‘Vikram’ to the lunar surface as observed by the lander imager camera. “… and here is how the Chandrayaan-3 Rover ramped down from the Lander to the Lunar surface”, said the message along with the video posted

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Thursday said that Pragyan Rover began its moonwalk on the lunar surface. Taking to X (formerly Twitter), ISRO said, “Chandrayaan-3 Mission. Chandrayaan-3 Rover to MOX, ISTRAC, Moon walk begins!” Earlier today ISRO also released the images of the Lander Imager Camera which captured the moon’s image just before the touchdown

The solar wind is a ubiquitous feature of our solar system. This relentless high-speed flow of charged particles from the sun fills interplanetary space. On Earth, it triggers geomagnetic storms that can disrupt satellites and it causes the dazzling auroras — the northern and southern lights — at high latitudes. But precisely how the sun

The US Justice Department sued Elon Musk-owned rocket and satellite company SpaceX on Thursday for allegedly discriminating against asylum seekers and refugees in hiring. “The lawsuit alleges that, from at least September 2018 to May 2022, SpaceX routinely discouraged asylees and refugees from applying and refused to hire or consider them, because of their citizenship

When Indian space agency scientists set out to design the Chandrayaan-3 moon mission, they knew they had one more chance to make history with a landing on the lunar south pole after a failed attempt four years ago. They also had to do it on a shoestring budget and ended up spending only Rs. 6.15

After the successful deployment of Chandrayaan-3‘s lander and rover on the moon, ISRO is hoping that their mission life will not be limited to one lunar day or 14 earth days, and that they will come back to life when the sun again rises on the Moon, to carry on with the experiments and studies

In a giant leap for its space programme, India’s Moon mission Chandrayaan-3 touched down on the lunar south pole at 6.04pm on Wednesday, propelling the country to an exclusive club of four and making it the first country to land on the uncharted surface. India scripted history as ISRO’s ambitious third Moon mission Chandrayaan-3’s Lander

With Chandrayaan-3 mission’s Lander ‘Vikram’ and rover ‘Pragyan’ scheduled to touch down on the Lunar surface on Wednesday, the task for the duo is cut out and here is what they will do once they reach the Earth’s only natural satellite. The Lander has the capability to touch down at a specified lunar site and

Chandrayaan-3, India’s latest lunar mission, is expected to make a soft landing on the south pole of the moon on August 23. The spacecraft was launched by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on July 14. After completing a journey of almost 40 days, the Chandrayaan-3 mission will finally make India the fourth nation to land

ISRO’s next likely Moon mission is in partnership with its Japanese counterpart, a venture that’s gathering steam. Lunar Polar Exploration Mission (LUPEX) is a collaborative venture between Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and the Bengaluru-headquartered Indian space agency. JAXA and ISRO are developing the rover and lander, respectively. The rover will carry not only the

If any factor regarding the lander module appears unfavourable, then the landing will be shifted to August 27, said the Space Applications Centre-ISRO about Chandrayaan-3 on Monday.  Nilesh M Desai, director of Space Applications Centre-ISRO, Ahmedabad said that the decision regarding the landing will be taken based on the health of the lander module and

In a significant development, the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter which was already fixed around the moon established a two-way connection with the lander module of Chandrayaan-3 on Monday. “‘Welcome, buddy!’ Chandrayaan-2 orbiter formally welcomed Chandrayaan-3 LM (lander module). Two-way communication between the two is established. MOX (Mission Operations Complex) has now more routes to reach the LM,”

US counterintelligence agencies on Friday warned the American space industry to guard against efforts by foreign intelligence entities to steal research and trade secrets as they try to boost their own countries’ space programs.  “We anticipate growing threats to this burgeoning sector of the US economy,” a US counterintelligence official told Reuters, adding that “China

Russia’s Luna-25 spacecraft adjusted its orbit on Friday as it prepared to attempt the first landing near the south pole of the moon, space agency Roscosmos said. “Today at 09:20 Moscow time (11:50 am IST), the propulsion system of the automatic station performed an orbit correction lasting 40 seconds. Its goal is to provide the

ISRO on Friday released a set of visuals of the Moon captured by cameras positioned on the Lander Module of Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft. The images, captured after the separation of the Lander Module from the Propulsion Module of the spacecraft on Thursday, showed the craters on the Moon’s surface that were marked on the photographs released

Chandrayaan-3’s Vikram lander is set to undergo a crucial deboosting manoeuvre on Friday after successfully getting separated from the propulsion module a day before. The deboosting manoeuvre is scheduled today at around 1600 IST. Deboosting is the process of slowing down to position itself in an orbit where the orbit’s closest point to the Moon

Achieving a major milestone, ISRO on Thursday announced that the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft’s Lander Module has successfully separated from the Propulsion module that was propelling it all these days in space. The Lander Module comprising the lander (Vikram) and the rover (Pragyan) is now ready to be lowered into an orbit that takes it closer to

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Wednesday successfully carried out the final orbit reduction manoeuvre of the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft, a week ahead of its scheduled landing on the Moon. “Today’s successful firing, needed for a short duration, has put Chandrayaan-3 into an orbit of 153 km x 163 km, as intended. With this, the lunar

India’s ambitious third Moon mission’s spacecraft Chandrayaan-3 on Monday underwent another manoeuvre, bringing it even closer to the Lunar surface, ISRO said. The national space agency headquartered here said the spacecraft has now achieved a “near-circular orbit” around the moon. Post its launch on July 14, Chandrayaan-3 entered into the lunar orbit on August 5,